Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to the field of sensory recording and transmission. More particularly, a system, apparatus and method whereby sensor data is buffered and then stored or transmitted following a triggering signal.
Description of Related Art
Recent developments in image sensors and mobile recording technology have resulted in a proliferation of sensors and recording systems. For the purpose of this claim, sensory can be thought of, but is not limited to, video, audio or a combination thereof. To capture rare sensory events, such systems must capture the sensor data prior to the event. Therefore, applications either capture more data than necessary through constant recording, or rare events are missed because a capture session was not initiated.
The overarching goal of sensory recording is to capture events that are relevant to the system user. Many such events are missed by recording devices because the most relevant events occur infrequently and unpredictably. For example, the average professional soccer game produces less than one goal for each 30 minutes of play. To capture that soccer goal, a video recording must be started before the goal is scored. Continuously recording devices will capture those rare events, but generate large amounts of data that must be stored and sorted to identify events of interest. In the soccer example, for a viewer who only cares about watching the goals, there would be nearly 30 minutes of game ‘noise’ for each goal ‘signal.’ The invention addresses this problem by creating an always-running loop buffer of sensory data that can be accessed after an event of interest occurs, but does not generate excess amounts of data.